Math

Math is my favorite subject so I would often use math websites with the kids.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Batter's Up Baseball is a great site to practice addition and multiplication. It's especially good to use with third or fourth graders around the season opener or near World Series time. There are several features I like about this game. Students choose from attempting a single which means a basic single digit fact, a double which is a two digit number times a single digit, or a home run, which is a double digit times a doubleIn the third level digit. They choose their answer from a grid of nine choices. There is also a timer. It gives them three strikes to get it correct and score. Actually, they don't score until a run is made so it takes four singles to score a point. I had students figure out that if they did three singles and then went for a home run, they would get a grand slam. Cheering crowd sound effects add to the fun. Some of the kids wanted to stay in from recess in order to play this game. Now that's a hit!

Multiflyer is a solar system themed multiplication site that was also very popular with third graders. Students must solve multiplication facts up to 12X12 in order to progress to the next planet. Students can select a difficulty level which determines the time allowed. There is also a grid which they can use to find the answer if they are stuck. If they make too many errors the game ends and they are given a report of how well they did in each times table. They can also use the practice mode for tables they find challenging.

Polygon Playground is a place where students explore polygons by using six different polygons in various sizes and colors to create patterns and pictures. Here there are no right or wrong answers, just creativity.

Fantastic Fractions is a grid of twenty five fraction activities that I put together for a class I was taking in differentiated instruction. I chose activities at different levels from basic to challenging as well as themes and types of activities. A few favorites were Fraction Flags, Fraction Monkeys, and Musical Fractions.

Star Gazing is one of the games from PBS Cyberchase, an excellent collection of challenging activities. In this game, students estimate angles in order to aim a telescope at a planet.

Play Your Cards Right is a card game for learning probability. A card is shown and you must predict whether the next card is higher or lower. At the third level, you must determine whether the odds are no chance, poor, even, good, or certain.

Possible Outcomes is another I liked for probability. It creates different combinations of hamburgers and toppings.

Chances is a dice game to illustrate probability. Once you set a number of rolls, it shows the outcome on a bar graph.

Base Block Subtraction is an activity I used with first graders near the end of the year. I visited a first grade classroom an saw them using actual base blocks to learn about regrouping so I used this site with virtual base blocks. You can vary the number of possible columns from 2 to 4 and thus change the range of problems given. When you move a ten stick to the ones column, it breaks into cubes. Subtraction is shown using both the manipulatives and the algorithm.

Fact Family Village is another activity that I created as part of a Math and Technology course. I made it to use early in second grade but it could also be beneficial in late first grade. The village is made up of streets from Zero Place to Tenth Street. Each street has houses with the fact families for that number. Clicking on the houses shows children wearing teeshirts with the various facts on them. The facts are also read aloud. I was also very aware of creating multicultural faces on the children.

Kindergarten

I am seeing more kindergarten students on a regular basis this year. Over the years, we have become much less software based and much more web focused. Although I have many good sites for this age on my Early Learning page, the trick is to get the kids to the sites. My solution is to create a tizmo for them, which is much more visually based.

Some of my favorite sites for this age are:

Bembo's Zoo, an alphabet site that morphs an animal word into the shape of that animal
Starfall, a site where children can learn the alphabet as well as a very well done phonics based reading program
Literacy Center, a place to practice skills with upper and lowercase letters, numbers, colors, and shapes
Building Language for Literacy, a Scholastic site with three different activities, initial consonants, sorting words based on location, and rhyming words
Count Us In, a math site with fifteen activities covering counting skills, patterns, basic addition and subtraction as well as others

My Own Content

Although most of the links on Teach the Children Well are to content provided by others, I would like to highlight content that I have created myself.

On the Math page, under the Addition and Subtraction topic is Fact Family Village which is an interactive site of addition and subtraction fact families from zero to ten.

In the Fractions topic is a grid of fraction links that is designed for students to self-differentiate based on interest, learning style, and ability. It is called Fantastic Fractions.

On the Social Studies page, under the Massachusetts topic are two different formats of the same questions about Massachusetts' Role in the American Revolution.  The first is an online crossword puzzle with clues that link to information. The second is a printable set of questions to be used with online questions with links to information.

There are several more links on the Social Studies page. In the Cape Cod topic is Cape Cod Photo Album, pictures from every town on the Cape. Also under that topic is Children's Theatre, a schedule of theatre productions on Cape Cod and within reasonable driving distance. There is a second link to that page under the Theatre topic of the Arts page. In the Elections topic is Electing the President of the United States, a printable set of questions with links that I created for the 2008 election and which I will update as needed for the 2012 election. Under Europe is European Photo Album which includes pictures and information from a vacation that I took with my family in 2000 as well as pictures my daughter took on subsequent trips.

The Other Topics page includes another crossword puzzle that I created called Winter Holiday Customs. This is found near the bottom of the Holidays topic. I have included religious and secular holidays from various faiths and cultures. On this same page are two specialized pages of links to online activities for the 100th Day of School and Gingerbread.